“I’ll get it!” Adam shouts when there’s a knock on my door. I cringe, expecting it’s my downstairs neighbor coming to scold us for being too loud. But it’s hard to keep things down with not only Adam and Carter in my apartment, but Jeremy and Tula, too. My friends showed up this morning with croissants and a determination to excavate me from my blanket pile of sadness, unaware that the Perry twins had beaten them by a day.
Of course, my friends didn’t just say “Looks like they’ve got it covered” and leave. No, they invited themselves into my condo and started peppering the guys with questions about a younger Maddie, all while cooking breakfast in my kitchen. After a good hour of this, I couldn’t ignore how much of myself I’d kept from Jeremy and Tula. How little I talked about my past.
This was different, though. Hearing about younger me from Adam and Carter’s perspective. They told stories about me like I was this cool chick they were lucky to know. I’m still processing the unfathomable perspective.
At one point, Jeremy disappeared and returned with his partner, Carlisle, and an armful of board games. That’s when things really started to get rowdy. It’s like they think the more boisterous they are, the less time I’ll have to slip back into despair.
Which, to be fair, seems to be working.
Well, that and my reignited competitive nature. I’d just finished yelling a series of Pictionary guesses at Carter, who is a fantastic singer but terrible artist, when the knock sounded.
If Ms. Boyd from downstairs is here to berate me for hollering “In what fucking universe is that a fairy godmother?!” then I deserve it.
“Wait, Adam,” I call after him as I stand, not wanting anyone to get tongue-lashed in my stead. “I’ll get it.”
But the guy is too quick, already at my front door with a charming grin on his face. When he turns the knob and swings it open, I watch his welcoming expression morph into surprise, then, of all things, nervousness.
“Adam?” The deep voice is unmistakable and stops my feet so fast, my fuzzy socks have me sliding on the hardwood floor.
“Dom!” Adam lets out a strained laugh. “Hey, bro! What a coincidence, am I right? Had no idea you were coming.”
And there he is. The man I most want to see, while also the one I most want to hide from under an avalanche of blankets.
Seeing Dom now, a crush of recent memories makes me gasp in my next few breaths.
Him wrapping his arms around me on the shores of Alpine Lake.
His voice saying I was a part of his perfect future.
His hot kiss in the airport after swearing to see me soon.
His voice on the phone telling me he wouldn’t make it.
Him saying Rosaline’s name and our house.
His refusal to read Josh’s letter to me when I was alone and needed my brother.
I’m too mixed up in the good and the terrible associated with him to figure out how to respond to his sudden appearance.
Plus, he’s put together much better than I was twenty-four hours ago when the twins discovered me. Dom wears a perfectly fitted button-up with ironed slacks and polished loafers. His hair is styled, and his face is shaved.
This is accountant Dom. He stands on my threshold looking as devastating as ever. All broad shoulders and dark eyes and looming presence.
Luckily, Adam Perry exists in the world.
“Come on in. Join the party. You know the gang, right?” Adam claps a hand on Dom’s shoulder and draws his brother into my home. Then he shuts the door, trapping us all inside together.
And I try not to cringe at the added awkwardness of Dom actually not knowing everyone. After the unexpected encounter with Jeremy, I planned to find a time to officially introduce Dom to Tula and Carlisle. But this is the first time he’s been back in Seattle since the Idaho trip.
Dom’s sharp gaze scans the room, giving Jeremy, Tula, and Carlisle curt nods of acknowledgment. His eyes narrow when they land on Carter.
When Dom looks at me, I see the betrayal on his normally unreadable face.
“You’re keeping in touch with my brothers.”
Guilt twists in my gut, but then consternation fueled by anger unwinds it. “No. Actually, they took my radio silence as an invitation to show up. Which you did, too, it would seem. Can’t a girl properly ghost people these days? Next time I’ll buy a van and go off-grid.”
Ah, discomfort covered by sarcasm. My old friend.
Dom’s lips tighten, then relax. “We need to talk.”
“I have guests over.” A protective barrier of friends that are currently keeping me from tearing into Dominic Perry.
Or kissing his face off.
Or climbing out my window and down my fire escape.
I don’t know what I want to do more, but it’s probably not healthy that I have such an equally strong urge for all three.
“Hey, guys!” Jeremy jumps up from his cross-legged seat on the ground and captures the attention of the room. “You want to see a condo with the exact same layout as this one but is three floors closer to the ground?”
“You know I do!” Adam responds with equal enthusiasm, and I wonder if the reason I gravitated toward Jeremy in the first place was that he reminded me of a certain Perry.
“You know, I think I forget what your place even looks like,” Tula says to Carlisle.
“Yes. And I left the stove on,” Carlisle adds. “Silly of me. Must go turn that off. Immediately.”
Carter merely shrugs. “Sure. Let’s go.”
I gape as my buffer network promptly abandons me. And I’m on my own.
With Dominic Perry.
The man steps forward, and I suddenly feel like prey in my own home. Stalked by him and his intense stare and impeccably dressed body. I tear my eyes from his and point at the couch.
“Sit. You’re looming. I don’t abide looming in my home. It’s strictly against the rules.”
He doesn’t follow my command. Instead, Dom strides until he’s standing directly in front of me.
Looming dialed up to a thousand.
He’s so close I can smell his cedar scent and see the twitching vein in his forehead.
“You know what I don’t abide? Is you letting me have a taste of life with you, then disappearing the moment things don’t go exactly as you planned,” he growls.
I gape at the man. Guess we’re not playacting niceties.
Fury burns through me, fueling my next scathing words.
“So what? You’re saying I should get used to you abandoning me? If you shut me out, I should shut my mouth and deal with it?”
“No—”
“You didn’t show. You refused to read Josh’s letter to me.” I jab him in the chest with a finger, emphasizing my hissed accusations. “I’m not the reason we’re over. You are.”
“Over?” Dom rasps the question.
I guess this is the problem with ghosting. You never properly clarify that things have ended.
“We never should’ve started in the first place.” Crossing my arms over my chest, I hope I look intimidating rather than like I’m protecting my vital organs. “It was a mistake we made because of grief. Or loneliness. Or whatever.”
“No,” he growls. “It wasn’t. And I’m going to read you the letter now because I didn’t want to talk about this on the phone. I needed to see your face even if you won’t meet my eyes.”
Dom pulls a familiar envelope out of his back pocket, and my heart hurts to see the ragged edge of where it’s already been torn open.
He slips the letter free and starts reading before I can decide if I want to hear it.
Dear Maddie and Dom,
Welcome to North Dakota!
You should be standing near, or under, a giant bird right about now. Take a picture for me.
Now, let’s get to what I want you both to do here in my memory.
This is a big one. First off, Maddie, your job is to listen. That’s it. Just listen. Let Dom speak before you decide anything.
Secondly, Dom, your job is to tell my sister why we didn’t speak for a stretch of time this past year.
And hey, maybe this request is immaterial. Maybe you’ve already told her everything. But if I know you, Dom, which I think I still do, you haven’t. And let me give you a piece of advice.
Tell Maddie everything. Always. Don’t hold back.
I wish I hadn’t.
Love,
Josh
“What does that mean?” My agitated fingers fist in my sweater, trying to find comfort in the knitted material. “About you not talking to Josh?”
Dom refolds the paper, then extends his arm so I can take it from him. I do, unfolding and scanning the letter. Everything is as he just read it.
“He meant exactly what he said. Josh refused to talk to me for a month.” Dom straightens his shoulders, bracing himself for whatever comes next. “He kept pushing me about the divorce. Saying that when he was gone, Rosaline and I would need each other. That whatever happened between us we should forgive and forget and rebuild our marriage. One day, I snapped.” Dom’s entire body is tense as he speaks. “I told him that Ros and I never should’ve gotten married in the first place. That I knew it was a mistake even when I spoke my vows.”
I jerk my head back, blinking fast. “You…What?”
Dom leans toward me, his earnest gaze holding mine. “I told Josh we got married because Rosaline was pregnant.”
Those last three words play on repeat in my head, looping over and over again as my memory takes me back to that morning when I watched as Dom proposed. She’d had tears in her eyes, glittering like delicate jewels on her lashes.
I’d thought they were happy tears.
I’d thought a lot of things.
“But”—I gasp, my airways tight—“you don’t have a kid.” That’s something I would know, no matter how much I tried to cut out all reminders of Dom from my life.
His gaze falls to his shiny shoes, and I hear a thickness in his voice when he next speaks.
“A miscarriage. A month after we got married.”
My first thought comes with an unexpected wave of pain.
Josh is not the first one Dom lost.
The man is a planner. Fatherhood may have been a surprise, but he’d immediately dive into the role. Pick names, paint the bedroom, research the safest car seat. Hell, he probably started a college fund for his unborn child.
And then there was no kid.
One more shitty thing in life that Dom couldn’t control. A loss that probably wrecked him. Maybe left scars.
Wounds that Josh’s diagnosis might have reopened.
My urge is to hug him, but I wrap my arms around myself instead. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I…” I dig my fingers into my sides and try to shove away the anger that still smolders alongside my sadness. “I was mad at you. But I never wanted something like that to happen. I’m sorry, Dom. I really, truly am.”
He dips his chin to his chest. “I shouldn’t have let things go on as long as they did with Rosaline. After the miscarriage, I think we just stayed together because it was comfortable. We both wanted something stable. It wasn’t until Josh told us he was dying that we truly looked at our marriage.”
Did they really look at it? Or did they make a rash decision to shake up their lives when reminded of their inevitable mortality?
“I knew I ruined things between us,” he confesses. “When you blocked my number and moved away. Knew you found out about the proposal before I could tell you.”
“I didn’t find out about it. I heard it.”
Horror washes over Dom’s face. “You what?”
“I went over to your house that morning. Because…Never mind. It doesn’t matter.” My sympathy for his loss and grief doesn’t ease the bitterness in my voice. “Hearing you propose to someone else or having you tell me later, it doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it matters.”
“No, Dom. It doesn’t. What would have changed?” Furious, hurt words spill from my soul as I realize a clearer view of the past still ends with the same conclusion. “You didn’t hesitate. Didn’t pause a moment to come up with any other ideas. Didn’t wait a single day to at least tell the girl you gave her first orgasm the night before, ‘Hey, this can’t go anywhere because I decided that I live in the nineteen-fifties when finding out my high school sweetheart is knocked up requires a proposal.’ ” I’m panting now, my cheeks flushed with humiliation I’d convinced myself I’d moved past.
Dom stares at me, eyes wide. “Your first—”
“Me not being your priority with a baby on the way would’ve made sense, you know,” I speak over him. “Things would’ve been messy and awkward, but if you’d talked to me at all before you made that decision, I would’ve at least known you cared. That I meant something to you, even if we couldn’t have been what I wanted.” My arms are in a vise grip around my waist, holding myself together as best I can. “But you didn’t just choose being a father over starting something with me. You chose being Rosaline’s husband. Rosaline needed you. And you forgot about me. You left me. Just for a different reason than I thought.” I shake my head, almost tempted to laugh. “Not for love. For responsibility.” My heart wants to stop talking, but my mouth keeps spitting words, seeping my pain like an infected wound refusing to close. “I was so upset, I couldn’t even remember if you enjoyed what we did.” I turn away from him, pacing around my kitchen. Dom watches every movement I make. “It’s not like you got off. It was just me. You did a favor for the girl who helped your family out.”
“Tell me you didn’t think that.” He says the command quietly. Carefully.
“I still do,” I volley back. “I was your best friend’s little sister with a silly crush. You gave me one amazing night as a thank-you for helping your family.” Whirling to face him, I plan on glaring into his eyes but only make it to the hollow of his throat because I’m a coward. “You took care of me. That’s what you do. But…fucking hell.” My eyes feel gritty as if I’ve been crying, and yet even now the tears don’t come. “When you leave me in the end, it all just feels like pity.”
“It wasn’t pity. It was perfection!” Dom thunders. “Touching you like that was perfection.” His body gives off too much heat as he moves into my space again. “And that’s why Josh refused to talk to me for weeks. He was furious because I told him I married Rosaline because of the pregnancy and not because of love. That I couldn’t feel that way about her. Not after falling in love with you.”
The world goes wonky on me, and I grab the kitchen counter to keep myself steady.
“You loved me?” That’s big enough on its own, but add in the other part? “You told Josh you were in love with me?”
Fucking hell.
I thought I knew what Josh wanted. What these trips were all about. Have his best friend take care of his little sister. Or maybe have me show his taciturn buddy that life isn’t all schedules and to-do lists.
But what if my brother had a different goal?
Josh knew that Dom loved me.
“Did you know he was planning these trips?” I throw the accusation at Dom. He’d seemed surprised at the funeral, or so I thought. That was a mess of a day for me, and I don’t know what to believe anymore. “Was all of this some kind of…matchmaking from the grave?”
Dom shakes his head. “I don’t know what Josh was thinking. Don’t know what he wanted. And no, he didn’t tell me about the trips. All I know is after going radio silent on me, he suddenly called me one day a couple months later. He apologized for getting angry. He said…” Dom clears his throat. “He said he could never be mad at someone for loving you. And I do, Maddie. I love you. I did then, too.”
The words from our car ride through South Dakota come back to me.
“When I could breathe, I could see you.”
So what? That summer Dom finally saw me and then fell for me?
There’s no relief at his revelation. No sense of peace or vindication.
There’s only panic.
“That’s not the flex you think it is,” I snap, shuffling away, seeking distance from his intensity that refuses to dial down a single notch. “You fell for me? So what? Is that supposed to make me feel better? Because all I’m hearing is that you thought you loved me, and you still left me. Whatever you felt for me wasn’t enough.”
“I made the wrong choice.” His jaw is rigid as he grits his teeth. “Leaving you was a mistake.”
“Well, what’s there to keep you from making it again? What’s to keep you from realizing your divorce was some strange grief reaction to Josh’s diagnosis, and you and Rosaline actually belong together? You’re still in each other’s lives. She’s still probably the loveliest fucking human being on the planet.” My voice goes shrill, and my back digs into the counter because I’ve retreated as far as I can from him. “Meanwhile I’m the weird girl who spends most nights doing puzzles and talking to her dead brother and only smiles when I think my boss might see me. You are responsible, and caring, and loyal, and entirely too good-looking.” I gesture to him in all his beauty, then to me in my old sweater that now has a hole in the sleeve because I tugged a loose thread too much. “You being with me doesn’t make sense.” I wave around my tiny condo that he takes up too much room in. “I live here, you live on the other side of the country. We only see each other when we’re spreading ashes. Aka, emotionally fucked up. And those trips are done after this last one.” A jagged pain wrenches through my stomach at the thought.
One more message from Josh.
One last goodbye to my brother.
One more guaranteed time to see Dom.
But that’s only if he shows, of course.
“The two of us together is not the responsible choice. I’m not the responsible choice. So how can I trust that you would make it? Because you can’t just do it once. You have to make the choice to be with me every single day. And I can’t deal with knowing that one day you might choose to go another way.” I force the words past my internal pain.
Then he’ll leave like everyone else does.
Dom’s expression waivers between emotions, making it impossible for me to decipher what he’s feeling. As if I ever could.
“You are weird,” he finally says, and I flinch. But he’s not done. “You’re so fucking weird, Maddie Sanderson. And I love it.” He runs an agitated hand through his hair, messing up the careful styling. “I love that half of your personality is puzzles and the other half is giving me shit. I love that you’re quiet sometimes, but your laugh is huge. I love that in spite of your mother and grandmother, you are kind. I love that there are times you let me take care of you even though you’re strong enough to stand on your own. All these years, I’ve never stopped loving you.” Dom takes a step toward me, then rocks back on his heels. “But I knew I’d ruined us. That even if Rosaline and I split, you were gone because I messed up. You’re right. Since I couldn’t be with the woman I wanted, I tried to do the responsible thing. To take care of Rosaline while we grieved what we lost. To commit to my marriage. But then Josh would mention your name, and I was done. He’d tell me one small thing about your life, and I’d fall all over again. You want to know why your birthday is the combination to my safe?” His eyes try to catch mine, but I stare at the framed puzzle of the Rocky Mountains over his shoulder instead, even as my body wants to lean toward his to better hear the answer. “Because I tried to literally lock thoughts of you away, too. It never worked. How I feel about you isn’t going away.”
My heart beats so hard it takes up precious space my lungs need.
Dom loves me.
I want it to be enough. But I know it’s not.
“I don’t trust you. I don’t trust anyone. I’m not built for this.”
“Built for what?” Dom gentles his harsh tone.
“Relationships. Loving someone. Relying on them.” I’ve found another loose thread and feel a kinship with this sweater. We’re both unraveling. “I don’t trust anymore. If I were with you, I would be afraid all the time. Love is so inconsequential now. People can love you and leave you. They do it every day.” I shake my head. “I can’t go through that again. I can’t worry about that every day.”
My whole life I’ve had to live through people turning away from me.
My father.
Cecilia.
Florence.
Dom.
“Maddie—”
“No. It’s not enough. Nothing is enough for me. I am broken.”
I don’t know when it happened. Maybe I’ve been breaking every day of my life. Little fractures that have slowly built into the shattering, and now I am simply pieces of a person that I have to hold together with my own will. Without the help of anyone else. Because how can I trust that their hold will remain? How can I trust anyone else to keep the pieces of me together? I can’t even keep the pieces of me together.
Dom stares at me with something like devastation.
I can’t meet his eyes anymore. I can’t be around him anymore. I can’t have the temptation of his love mixing with the toxic fear that is my constant distrust. I need him gone from my life. I need to sever this connection. I need to free Dom from me and myself from him.
“Alaska. I’ll start the planning. We’ll do the final state. We’ll say goodbye to Josh.” I suck in a deep breath. “And we’ll say goodbye to each other.”
“No.”
I ignore him. “This will fade when we’re not around each other anymore. When you don’t feel responsible for me. You’ll realize you want something different.” And I won’t be collateral damage when he does.
“No,” Dom repeats. “I’m not the reason we’re over,” he says, reusing my earlier words. “I’m not going anywhere. Not now and not after Alaska. Plan it, or don’t. These trips aren’t the reason I’m still obsessed with you.” He stalks across the room toward me. “This distance between us is you pushing me away. Trying to make me leave you.” He looms once more, voice deep with warning. “Get this straight, Maddie. I won’t go.”
Anxiety transforms into defensiveness and makes me snap back.
“So, what? You’re squatting in my condo now?” I glare up at him. “Adam and Carter may be your brothers, but if I ask them to carry you out of here bodily, what do you want to bet they’ll do it?”
Dom smirks. “They can try.” Then he reaches out to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. “We don’t have to test your theory, though. I won’t force my way into your home.”
“Good,” I mutter, longing for him to walk out already so I can entomb myself in a pile of quilts. “Have a safe flight back to Philly. I hope you sit beside a chatty creep with a crying baby.”
Instead of scowling at me, Dom’s expression stretches into a mischievous smile I’m more used to seeing on his brothers’ faces.
“I said I wouldn’t stay in your home.” The asshole cups my chin, his thumb tracing the curve of my cheek, and I accidentally let him keep doing it. “But I didn’t say I’d leave your city.”
“What?”
“Don’t you want to know why it took me a week to seek you out?” A shadow crosses his expression. “I didn’t want to wait. After you hung up on me, I booked a ticket to come the moment the storm let up.”
“Yeah, well, you didn’t.” My voice is breathless instead of sharp, the way I need it to be.
“No,” he agrees. “I didn’t. Because I realized that this time, I didn’t want to book a round-trip ticket.”
Time stutters, and I wonder if this is what happened in our Alabama Airbnb. If someone said something so shocking that all the clocks ceased to function properly.
“You…”
Dom backs up, giving me space, and I try to use it to breathe. But as he keeps talking, I have trouble focusing on anything other than his words.
“I found a town house. Not too far from here. You can walk to it when you’re ready. And this morning?” He smooths a hand over his perfectly ironed button-up. “I had my final meet and greet in the interview process. Not to sound too cocky, but they were quite impressed with me. I expect to get an offer in the next few days.”
A horrifying suspicion arises. “Interviewing where?”
He holds my eyes. “The Redford Team.”
“Fuck you,” I whisper.
Dom’s smile is hard this time, his stare piercing. “Tell me you don’t love me. And I’ll turn it down.”
“Fuck you,” I say louder this time.
My irresponsible language doesn’t faze him.
Dom’s eyes drag over me, his stare possessive, and then he gives a curt nod. “That’s what I thought.”
He turns on his heel and strides toward the door, pausing with his fingers wrapped around the knob. “I’m leaving your home, but I’m not leaving you. I’m not going anywhere.” Dom gives his speech to the molding, and I’m grateful because I don’t know if I could survive the next words paired with the weight of his gaze. “I messed up. I will again. You had me on a pedestal, and I hurt you when I fell off it. I can’t promise you perfection, much as I want to be that man for you. What I can swear is that I will never be the one to leave. I’m yours, Maddie Sanderson. And I’m ready to wait, as long as it takes.”
Then he’s gone.
But if what he told me is true, he hasn’t gone far.